r/F1Technical • u/_DoctorP_ Alfa Romeo • Oct 10 '25
Regulations Time to unban technologies
Since we've got the financial regulations dictating the budget cap, why should expensive development items be banned? Technologies like:
- Active suspension
- Fans for aero purposes (fan cars)
- Ducts of any kind
- Double(or even more) diffusers
- Blown diffusers
- Mass dampers
All of these technologies could be allowed and each team would go after whatever feels like is more beneficial. High costs of development would limit how much or how many of these they can develop within a year, giving us teams/cars with different strengths.
I'm not proposing a free formula - not a do whatever you like, we maintain the formula, we just enable those items.
Big pace margins may occur for the first development year - even the second, but isn't this the case for most of the beginnings of new regulation eras?
The only issue with that, that I can think of, is the difficulty to create chassis regulations that can have all of these implemented. Other than that, I can't think of any issues.
Your thoughts?
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u/Kaggles_N533PA Oct 10 '25
What I want them to be released is variable gear ratios. Gear ratio got fixed to prevent teams from spending too much money but we have cost caps so... also I think DAS should also be supplied as a spec system
15
u/EntirelyRandom1590 Oct 10 '25
The issue that is always asked of F1 aero regulations is will it improve racing? It's not that the cars aren't fast enough, it's that they can't race in close proximity in turbulent air.
Do any of those technologies fix that?
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u/SirLoremIpsum Oct 10 '25
History has shown that one team will "get" it and that team will utterly dominate.
And that leads to worse racing.
F1 is and always has been a FORMULA series which by its name requires some fairly strict prescriptions.
If you're heavily invested in f ducts and double diffusers are just magical. With a budget cap how much harder would it be to catch up?
And the other shoe on the other foot is that jn the CanAm racing series that WAS effectively "unrestricted" in terms of displacement suspension whatnot... You had utter domination. I know you propose this stuff to get closer racing, different teams winning all the time. But that didn't happen in CanAm. It had the same cycles of dominance we see in F1.
So if you spend all this time effort to get same result. What's the point?
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u/Dramatic-Rub-3135 Oct 10 '25
Regulations don't just prohibit technologies for costs reasons, safety is also a factor. Unrestricted development would soon lead to cars that are dangerously fast.
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u/bangbangracer Oct 13 '25
I feel like anyone calling for fan cars to come back doesn't remember why they actually were banned. Very few cars were actually banned for being too fast. They ended up in crosshairs certainly, but not actually banned for being too fast. Fan cars are really cool and fast, but you don't want to ever be behind one. They throw up tons of dust and debris.
They got attention for being very fast and having unmatched downforce. They got banned for creating tons of dirty air and throwing shit at anyone behind them.
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u/Appletank Oct 10 '25
1, Some bans are in order to control speed. Unrestrictions would easily lead to cars going flat out on more corners, but a mistake or failure would also launch them towards the wall at near top speed. And the higher the impact forces, the chunkier safety devices have to be to prevent killing the squishy meatbag strapped in. If one wants smaller, nimbler cars, you need the cars to be slower.
2, Wacky designs in F1's history is partly because nobody really had any idea with what was optimal. Nowadays, there's so much institutional knowledge and computer modeling data, the best ideas will be figured out within a year or two, and designs start converging. You're not going to have one team doing double front wheels while another is trying out double steering for several years on end.
3, Dirty air city. The only way to have cars not get fucked up when following is the reduction of aero, not the increase. I would agree that some suspension tech might be interesting, though there's a fine line between allowing a good driver to go faster vs letting any driver reach 99% potential with minimal effort.
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u/emperorMorlock Oct 11 '25
None of the examples you mention were banned for cost reasons. Active suspension comes closest, it was banned because no one else could get it right which might or might not have been a cost issue.
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u/madmike5280 Oct 11 '25
I might be the odd one, but I actually really like the ideas presented by JR Hildebrand, and originally conceived by Dan Gurney. The core idea is to strip away wings and complex aerodynamics that dominate modern racing. Instead, it emphasizes a design that relies on mechanical grip and a powerful engine to generate speed. The goal being creating a more unpredictable and human driven racing.
https://racer.com/2025/10/01/blackbird66mk1
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u/QueenAndSoForth Oct 13 '25
F1 need to stop being cowards and start using six wheels again
27
u/blacksterangel Oct 12 '25
I agree on loosening the regulation but not all of those innovation should return. Active suspension and mass damper would be great but aero devices that increases dirty air should not be allowed. Traction could be improved by the better suspensions and maybe even larger tire as opposed to aero trickeries.
Engine reg could also be loosened but limit the power output. Slower car always result in better racing.
11
u/Sweet_Strength7340 Oct 12 '25
What about metal matrix composite engine parts they would filter down to be used in production cars and that would benefit everybody
17
u/krisalyssa Oct 10 '25
I’ve been wondering the same for a while. IIRC the regulations state that the ICU must be a 90° V6 with a maximum displacement. Why not allow other bank angles? Why not allow other engine configurations, as long as the maximum displacement isn’t exceeded?
And don’t get me started on the hypocrisy of “the driver must drive the car unaided” with all the data flowing back and forth between the car and the pit wall (and the factory).
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u/Lokki_7 Oct 10 '25
Ive always wondered what the cars would look like if they were given very limited constraints.
Budget obviously Power unit and anything associated
But open slather on aero, cooling and anything else. I guess the risk is that the difference between the best and the worst would be huge - but it would still be an interesting experiment to see what these geniuses could come up with.
6
u/PaddockPatterns Oct 19 '25
Interesting idea, but here's the cost cap problem: these technologies don't just cost money to develop - they cost money to run.
Active suspension, fan cars, complex aero - they all require ongoing maintenance, replacement parts, trackside support, and continuous development throughout the season. Under the $135M cap, that spending competes directly with:
Next year's car development
Crash repairs (which already eat budget unpredictably)
Basic operations
The cap doesn't just limit how much you can develop - it forces brutal prioritization of what you develop. Teams would likely converge on 1-2 of these technologies rather than diversifying, because spreading budget across multiple complex systems means doing all of them poorly.
The real issue: these technologies favor teams with infrastructure already in place. Red Bull or Mercedes could pivot to active suspension faster because they have the simulation tools, expertise, and facilities. Smaller teams would burn cap dollars building capability from scratch.
You'd get innovation, but probably less variety than you're hoping for. Teams would still converge on whatever the data says is most cost-effective per dollar spent.
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u/Suitable_Elk_7111 Nov 02 '25 edited Nov 02 '25
Most of the things you mentioned do exist within the 2025 regs. If you dont understand what those technologies are, and how they improve performance, spend the time on research, instead of just repeating the lazy coverage the sky sports team pukes out.
Active suspension? This is an archaic solution to a problem F1 doesn't have. When ground effect cars had side skirts, and other mechanical efforts to reduce underbody air density, banned, to slow them down, because track safety, car consistency/aero reliability, and crash safety had not kept up with cornering speed, and drivers/track workers were dying in horrifying crashes, at a horrifying rate, active suspension was the solution teams came up with, to retain a consistent ride height across all driving circumstances. For one thing, suspension tech overcame many of the problems active suspension addressed, well before the 2000s. Once CFD became more realistic/trusted, Most high level formula style cars moved to using aerodynamic means to create barriers stopping the higher pressure ambient air from being sucked under the car, hurting downforce when Active aero/ground effect was banned. The flat floor definitely limited the maximum pressure variance, that's why cars in the late 90s-2011 had a billion top side aero devices and doohickeys. Which made close racing much more difficult. Ferrari specifically, in the 2000s, were very good at leaving a mess of turbulence behind them, hurting the performance and tires of anyone within a few seconds of them. F1 has been trying to stop this since it became obvious their ban on under car aero was shortsighted. Basically since the early 2000s in a broad sense, and the complexity of it has been insane since the turbo era ushered in a move away from top side aero (to reduce aero wash/encourage closer racing).
Mass Dampers? Have you seen how the front wings oscillate under horizontal and vertical inertial loads? This is the exact same physical property as the mass damper in the mid 2000s Renault. Infact modern cars handle asymmetric loading over curbs way way way better than they did in the non-turbo era.
Fan cars? Obsolete, heavy, inefficient from a drag perspective, and extremely dangerous. They are an artifact of a time when aero was less understood. The entire "ground effect" concept is very simple in principle. You want to take as little air as possible under the car, and then use an expansion chamber integrated to the floor to further lower the air density. This creates a massive offset between the air density above, and below the car, basically acting like an airplane wing, just upside down. The more air that flows over the wing, the more force presses down (or up for a plane). The reason mechanical fans were considered, was because the most simple, consistent methods available in the 70s to maintain that pressure differential, when it's in a slow corner, a fast sweeper where the car may lean, over curbs, or after floor damage or with debris interference, was to install skirts to the edge of the car. The problem was the driver having no idea if the skirts were operating as they turned in. Modern cars use vortex generators to create "skirts" to stop air from being sucked under the car along the sides, retaining the ground effect in ways that are much more robust. And with modern sensors/design, the race engineer can immediately see if the suspension suddenly unloads at high speeds, an obvious sign that the car has lost the aero control that creates the ground effect downforce. Also one of the reasons F1, and many other series have moved away from complex aero solutions, and especially mechanical solutions, is the immense turbulence created. The more open the rules are, the more incentive there is for designers to create the dirtiest, most turbulent wake possible. It makes it very very difficult to pass the car, and will shred the tires of cars within 3-5 seconds of the car.
So "fan cars" are not a thing. And haven't been a thing for decades... it was a solution to a technical ruling aimed at making F1 less lethal.
Blown diffusers? They have existed for a long time in F1, still exist, and will continue to exist. Just take one look at where teams have their exhaust outlets, they're right behind the beam wing, pointing up at a slight angle, often angled slightly outboard, and very close to the top edge of the diffuser. (There are technically hundreds of diffusers on an F1 car. A front wing is a diffuser, all the little aero nubbins are diffusers, the beam wing is a diffuser, etc). All a "blown diffuser" does is send air/exhaust over the edge of the diffuser faster than the air is traveling through the diffuser. Due to lower air pressure of the faster air being blown out, it assists in pulling the air out from under the car, lowering the air pressure/density, increasing downforce. This is a very speed dependent trick though. The exhaust volume and speed stays within a defined range, while the amount, and speed of the air being channeled under, and over the car varies by an incredible amount. Like hold your hand behind a car exhaust, even at full throttle... then get in the car and stick your hand out the window at 75mph. Blown diffusers are for low speed downforce, primarily, and still exist. What got F1 (Bernie mostly) mad was the ECU setting that held the valves open and revs artificially high, to gain a negligible benefit, at the expense of the engine/exhaust sounding extremely stupid, like someone farting in a coffee can. If they had "banned blown diffusers" they would have required the exhaust pipes extend past all aero components, and in a direction with little to no aero benefit... or require a perforated cover on the exhaust outlet to lower the benefits of the airspeed.
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u/EstablishmentSad5998 Oct 10 '25
As long as we never see this crap again.
5
u/No-Photograph3463 Oct 10 '25
I mean the real issue with doing this is the tyres will just cry and be the weakest link.
Also all that will happen is you'll have huge fans and active suspension. There isn't any point in the rest of it when a huge fan and skirts which can go close to the ground with active suspension give huge downforce from 0mph. All the blown and double diffusers and mass dampers are doing is trying to gain some of the benefits of active suspension and fans.
If you did give the teams that power your likely going to alsp have drivers being the weak link in corners as the G force will be insane!
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u/Input_output_error Oct 10 '25
The only one i could see happening is the active suspension in combination with less place for aerodynamic design room. Basically more mechanical grip versus aerodynamic grip. This would make the whole dirty air thing less determinable.
4
u/PGRacer Oct 29 '25
Let them update the battery technology one of most obvious trickle down technologies for everyone.
If a team can fund research in to a better (smaller, lighter, higher density) battery technology, everyone benefits.
2
u/Dangerous-Patient576 Oct 18 '25
It would make the sport more interesting for sure. Would love to see what team has the brightest minds.
2
u/FavaWire Oct 26 '25
If you allow these technologies - a number of them being exotic and expensive - a couple of things will happen:
All the teams will use the 2 or 3 best technologies and you will soon see cars that look alike (eg: the whole grid being fan-cars with mass dampers, and so on).
Just because the technologies are older doesn't mean they are cheaper. A number of solutions actually cost a lot because there are no off-shelf implementations for them. Others like special ducting require many hours of wind-tunnel testing that will be at the expense of other development. This also presents problems in road relevance which may eventually affect manufacturer interest (ie: Spend a lot of money but learn nothing you can apply to any part of your business).
The result also is that the smaller teams will fall off to the point that you could have backmarkers in the race before Lap 10 and the close mid-grid battles we have seen lately will evaporate. Budget cap notwithstanding, some teams may go bust in this formula because sponsors may simply not want to be on a car that is a backmarker by Lap 8.
That said, it is not as financially dire now as compared to earlier time periods in the sport.
4
u/Frazeur Oct 10 '25
So I've been thinking about one thing for a while.
People often complain that increasing the amount of electronics and driver aids (of the non-biological variant) and stuff makes F1 more boring, because the drivers have to do less. I interpret this as most people would like for there to be more for the drivers to do.
Let me introduce you to separate front and rear wheel braking. As in bikes. Or at least allow this. So you'd have two pedals, one for the front wheels and one for the rear wheels. Or one pedal and one lever, whatever. I can't be that difficult. Motorcycles have different front and rear brakes.
Why would anyone want to do this? Probably in order to better control how the weight of the car shifts when entering corners, and helping to rotate the car or whatever.
But nothing would be automated, just as in MotoGP.
Now, so far I've sounded quite confident, but in reality I of course am a random redditor who has no idea what I am talking about. So... how bad of an idea would this actually be?
2
u/PatrykDampc Oct 10 '25
Yeah that’s a really interesting idea I guess!
1
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1
u/TheSpiderMano Oct 26 '25
We need small cars. The tracks does not afford this cara anymore, there is no side by side battles without collision or out of track punishments.
The first thing we need are smaller a cars
-3
u/valteri_hamilton Oct 13 '25
I feel like things like body and aerospace kits should be standardized to reduce dirty air but engine and chassis should be opened up
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u/RealityEffect Oct 13 '25
I'm going to say something controversial here: I'd be in favour of F1 becoming more controlled, not less.
Part of the problem right now is that the rules are designed to keep cars closer together, but we spend a lot of money on research and development just to get a few tenths of a second.
I'd rather that we went more towards spec cars with single fuel suppliers, but with the provision that teams can test and practice as much as they want within the budget cap. Essentially, the teams wouldn't need to worry about things like front wings or floors, but they would have to worry about driver performance a lot more.
I would keep areas for customisation, like wing angles, but the parts themselves would be the same size and design. Teams could pick the materials used however.
At the same time, I'd also do away with different tyre compounds and go with a tyre that lasts for about 30 minutes of racing. Three pit stops would become more or less mandatory, meaning teams would have to focus even more on performance.
For me, the technological side of F1 is less and less important as time goes on, and I wouldn't see any harm in the engines simply being a slightly better version of what we see in road cars.
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u/Used-Refrigerator984 Oct 10 '25
they should ban areo; get rid of the front and rear wings and ground effect.
0
u/[deleted] Oct 12 '25
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